On a day of election season slip-ups, the blunders turned out to be bipartisan.
Not only did the city’s Democratic party fail to file its official endorsements on time; so did the GOP.
Both parties missed the Wednesday afternoon deadline to file their endorsed nominees for mayor, city clerk, and aldermanic races. That means no one gets an automatic spot on the primary ballot; all candidates will have to collect signatures to get on the ballot.
“I made a mistake,” said Republican Town Committee Chair Richter Elser. “I brought the certificate to City Hall on the wrong date.”
He said he tried to turn the papers in on Thursday and found he was a day late.
“Basically I was spending time with the candidates” and making sure they had all their papers in order, he said. “I made a mistake and did not file the one piece of paper I was supposed to file.”
At the town GOP convention earlier this month, city Republicans voted to endorse four aldermanic candidates: Andy Ross in Wooster Square’s Ward 8, Paul Chandler in Yale’s Ward 1, Frank Lobo in the Hill’s Ward 6, and William Wynn in East Rock’s Ward 10.
Elser said Republicans will have a “significantly easier” time of collecting the signatures than the Democrats, since they are so much fewer. To get on the ballot, aldermanic candidates have to collect signatures from 5 percent of registered Republicans.
Ross’ ward has only 86 registered Republicans. That means he’ll have to get five signatures to claim a spot on the ballot.
3/5 has been vindicated on this day. The party system is a joke!